In the market for a Blu-ray player and can put down a little more than for just a bargain player? Especially if you’re a loyal Marantz enthusiast, you’ll be happy to know you can get some money back for buying one of its Blu-ray players from now until the end of the year.
Marantz is offering a $100 mail-in rebate applicable to the purchase of its high-performance BD7004 ($799) and BD5004 ($549) Blu-ray players, good on purchases made between now and December 31, 2009.
The BD7004 and BD5004 look as good as they perform, with sleek aluminum/reinforced resin front panels and center-mount drawers. The video performance gets a big boost from Anchor Bay VRS Technology video scaling, to bump up those standard DVDs to 1080p as well.
Both units include SD/SDHC card readers for WMA, MP3, and JPEG file support, and the BD7004 plays nicely with DivX and AVCHD files, too.
Lossless audio formats Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio are decoded onboard, and both have HDMI 1.3a support for 36-bit Deep Color. And with that extra $100 you’ll be able to pick up some cool Blu-ray discs to start demo’ing in your theater.
Marantz BD7004
As you’d expect from a deck designed for demanding home cinema systems, there’s plenty of action on the back panel. There are Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD Master Audio decoders on board and the 7.1-channel analogue outputs let you enjoy hi-res soundtracks even if your amp lacks HDMI sockets. A separate set of stereo audio connections, isolated from the multichannel sockets, is best used for straight-up CD playback, while the coaxial digital output passes the 5.1 audio stream to a receiver.
On the video side, the HDMI v1.3 port fires out 1080/24p pictures from Blu-ray discs, Dolby TrueHD/DTS HD Master Audio bitstreams and upscaled DVD video signals (at 720p, 1080i or 1080p). Component outputs deliver hi-def video up to 1080i and benefit from a 297MHz/12-bit video DAC (the BD5004 offers a 150MHz version).
Marantz BD5004
The BD5004’s disc drive supports the following formats: BD, DVD, CD audio, AVCHD, JPEG, MP3, WMA, and Divx. The back panel features an Ethernet port for BD-Live Web features, as well as quick firmware updates. The player doesn’t include a wireless network connection option. The BD5004 lacks internal memory, so the addition of an external storage device is required to download BD-Live features; an SD card slot is provided for this purpose. The front-panel SD card slot also supports playback of AVCHD, JPEG, MP3, and WMA files. Finally, the BD5004 sports IR in/out ports for integration with an advanced control system.
High Points
• The BD5004 supports 1080p/24 playback of Blu-ray discs.
• The player has internal Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio decoding and can pass these formats in bitstream form over HDMI.
• It supports BD-Live Web content and can play picture-in-picture bonus content.
• This player offers a Source Direct mode to output all discs at their native resolution via HDMI.
• The SD card slot allows for easy playback of digital movies, music, and photos.
• IR in/out ports are provided.
Low Points
• The BD5004 lacks multichannel analog audio outputs, so it’s not the best choice for someone who owns an older, non-HDMI A/V receiver.
• This player does not support any type of video-on-demand or music streaming, nor does it feature a wireless option for connection to your home network.
• The player lacks internal memory, and Marantz does not supply an SD card for storage of downloadable BD-Live content.
Source: us.marantz.com
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